User blog comment:Theena/Is Sparda really dead?/@comment-775152-20120102220124

Great question! I'm glad you brought it up!

I believe the only place where it says he died was in the first game, in the opening movie. However, in almost all other instances since then, Sparda is said to have just disappeared. The exception to the "disappeared" rule is; in the manga, (in my translation at least,) Arkham says to Vergil that Sparda died as a human, but; 1) the manga is only arguably canon, and 2) that is Arkham's interpretation and he could be wrong.

In short, the games contradict themselves and Capcom isn't talking. So, where does that leave us? Well, right where we are. It is possible (and it is my personal belief) that Sparda is still "alive" somewhere. I say "alive" because he could be dead, but where would his soul go? Hell, presumably, where he could theoretically regain his power and come back. (The game world is kind of fuzzy on just what happens to demons when they die.) He could also be, as you suggested, perfectly fine and alive, just elsewhere. If this were the case, however, it begs the question, why didn't he step in to help Eva and his sons? We can't really answer that question, and it does bother the heck out of me.